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Starting your own business isn’t just about being able to look professional, it’s about making sure your idea has merit, and you can execute on it. No different from an episode of Baking Impossible – you get a crazy idea, work with random people to make it happen, and then get hit by a surprise stress test (which usually destroys everything except the greats). It’s not impossible, it just requires good planning, and some testing. So how do you make it easier (and less likely to fail)?

Step 1. Understanding your market

Don’t rush straight into logo design and opening a business bank account. The first step is understanding your market. Can you clearly articulate who your customer is? How large your market is (i.e. how many customers are there)? Who are your competitors & what share of the market do they occupy? It might sound academic, but without a good understand of your market and it’s size, how do you know if you’ll ever be profitable? Or where to go fishing for customers?

How important is Step 1 really? Think about where you’re going to open your business. If you don’t know your customers or competitors, where will you locate your business? The same thing applies online. Are you going to a Facebook store or hosted on Wix or something else entirely? Location should be determined by your customers. The higher the footfall, the better your odds.

Step 2. Talking to your customers

Validating your idea is surprisingly easy. Talk to your customers. Pick-up the phone, or go out and meet them. Once you’ve had the first few *real* conversations, run an online survey. The more data you get the better. There’s usually always a gap between what we think customers want, and what they actually want. This helps you bridge that.

If you can’t find a few prospective customers to talk to, who are you actually going to sell your product to? This is your very first, totally free stress test. Don’t invest in a website builder or buying domains till you’ve done this. If you don’t have a plan for your business, there’s absolutely no way you can plan a website to support it.

What next?

This sounds like alot! Can’t I just sell my acme-product? You could do, but there’s a reason why so many start-ups fail. Take some time to do early planning. It doesn’t require an MBA, just some time dedicated to planning and research. Check out my one-page business plan guide for tips on what questions to ask yourself and some early homework you could do.

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